Why does no VPN declare collecting my browsing history or location?

Because Play's form asks what the app collects about you as a user, and traffic passing through a tunnel is not one of its fourteen categories. The absence of a web browsing row tells you nothing about whether connection logs are kept. That question is answered, if at all, by the provider's privacy policy and any independent audit of it.

Does a 'no-logs' policy show up in the data-safety declaration?

No. Data safety has no field for it, so a provider cannot state it there and its absence is not a red flag. Treat the declaration and the no-logs claim as two separate documents: the declaration covers account and diagnostic data, the policy covers the traffic.

VPNs

Google Play shows a data-safety declaration one app at a time. Here are 5 VPNs side by side, so the differences are visible rather than remembered. Categories none of them declares are hidden.

A VPN carries every packet your phone sends, so this is the one category where the trust question has no partial answer — and it is also the category where the declaration is least able to answer it. The rows you most want to read are not on this page at all: not one VPN below declares collecting location or web browsing, so both drop out of the grid entirely. That is the form's scope showing — it asks what the app collects from you, not what the tunnel carries on your behalf. What these declarations do describe is the account wrapped around the service — email address, purchase history, device identifiers, crash logs — and that varies noticeably from provider to provider. A no-logs claim is a separate artefact entirely. It lives in a privacy policy or an audit report, and Play never asks for it here.

What each developer declares their app collects and shares
Data category	ExpressVPNdeclares 4 collected, 0 shared	Mullvad VPNdeclares 3 collected, 0 shared	NordVPNdeclares 5 collected, 0 shared	Proton VPNdeclares 3 collected, 0 shared	Surfsharkdeclares 6 collected, 0 shared
Personal info	Collected	Collected	Collected	Collected	Collected
Financial info	Not declared	Collected	Collected	Collected	Collected
Messages	Not declared	Not declared	Not declared	Not declared	Collected
App activity	Collected	Not declared	Collected	Not declared	Collected
App info & performance	Collected	Collected	Collected	Collected	Collected
Device or other IDs	Collected	Not declared	Collected	Not declared	Collected
Declares data encrypted in transit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Declares you can request deletion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Source	Play listingVerified 2026-08-07	Play listingVerified 2026-08-07	Play listingVerified 2026-08-07	Play listingVerified 2026-08-07	Play listingVerified 2026-08-07

Questions about VPNs

Why does no VPN declare collecting my browsing history or location?: Because Play's form asks what the app collects about you as a user, and traffic passing through a tunnel is not one of its fourteen categories. The absence of a web browsing row tells you nothing about whether connection logs are kept. That question is answered, if at all, by the provider's privacy policy and any independent audit of it.
Does a 'no-logs' policy show up in the data-safety declaration?: No. Data safety has no field for it, so a provider cannot state it there and its absence is not a red flag. Treat the declaration and the no-logs claim as two separate documents: the declaration covers account and diagnostic data, the policy covers the traffic.